Credible
Realtime
Experiential
Development
Street | CRED
Mike’s quest of surviving the streets “on tour” and improvising his path home - a better one
Mike unpacks the reality of being unhoused by challenging traditional definitions of "home."
This collection covers 2 periods of his life spent living on the streets:
2020
Returning from Portland, Oregon
With connections in Chicago and Michigan
2023
Returning from Alexandria, Louisiana
With connections in Natchez, New Orleans, Galion, and Mansfield
“Necessity is the mother of invention. ”
Living on the streets confronted Mike firsthand with some of the real-world problems that plague many cities and vulnerable communities throughout the United States.
He learned some of the basic tools for survival, developed his own processes for locating essential resources (e.g. food, shelter, hygiene, healthcare, transport), and identified some of the key gaps that continue to inhibit folks from climbing out of their respective states of insecurity and despair.
Mike’s long-winded journey provided him with many unexpected moments of joy, revealing a radically different side of places in which he’d lived before. Experiencing firsthand the kindness and selflessness of the people and organizations around him led him to fall in love with places like Columbus, Chicago, New Orleans, and Natchez in a way that he had previously overlooked while living comfortably as a young professional.
To exist is political. Mike looks back on his 3-year quest with both triumph and remorse, performing a cappella the Elton John smash hit "I'm Still Standing."